


Not Never, Nohow

by DesireeArmfeldt



Category: Firefly
Genre: Backstory, Drinking Games, Female Friendship, Female-Centric, Gen, Gift Fic, Implied Femslash, Past Relationship(s)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-06
Updated: 2014-07-06
Packaged: 2018-02-07 18:47:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,930
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1909797
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DesireeArmfeldt/pseuds/DesireeArmfeldt
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The ladies of Serenity play a drinking game.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Not Never, Nohow

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Elleth](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Elleth/gifts).



“Not never, nohow, have I ever rustled cattle.” In Inara's cultured voice, the border slang sounds like some odd kind of poetry.

“No fair!” Kaylee protests. “We agreed, only things you don’t know for sure about other folks.”

Zoë nods in agreement.

“True,” Inara concedes. “Very well. . .Not never, nohow, have I. . .rustled cattle _before_ I came to live on _Serenity._ ”

Zoë rolls her eyes, shakes her head, and tosses back her shot of sake. Inara raises inquiring eyebrows at Kaylee, who shakes her head.

“I was a law-abiding girl ‘fore I took up with this lot,” she says as Inara refills Zoë’s cup. “Well. . .not _law_ -abiding, exactly. Kowlonshi folk don’t hold much with Alliance law, and they don’t care for the sheriff or the judge telling ‘em what to do, neither. But all the same, they’re real particular about what’s done and what’s not-done. Bit like you Companions that way, I suppose—‘course, our manners weren’t pretty like yours. . .”

“Pretty is in the eye of the beholder.” Inara smiles gently. “Your manners suit you well.”

Kaylee ducks her head, blushing and grinning.

“So, cattle rustling was considered. . .unmannerly, on your homeworld?” Inara asks.

“Weeell. . .” says Kaylee. “It ain't exactly considered friendly or nothing, but sorta. . .expected, almost. Like, you gotta respect someone who can pull a job like that.”

Zoë nods and adds, “And if you’re fool enough to let someone walk off with what’s yours, then shame on you. Lot of frontier worlds, it’s like that."

“Any road," Kaylee continues, "If I’d’a done something like that back home, my Ma would’ve fussed about unladylike behavior and my Pa would’ve tanned my hide like I was a boy, for making trouble with the neighbors. Not but what I might not have done it just the same, but I never had a reason to. Pa always made enough patching up ships ‘n skimmers and whatnot-all for us to get by, and I didn’t see the fun in thieving just for sport. ‘Sides, you need a crowd for rustling,” she adds, wistfully.

Inara frowns a little, but says nothing.

“That’s a fact,” Zoë says firmly. “And this crowd is mighty glad to have you on board. Not just for your magic fingers, neither.”

Kaylee grins and gives her a sketchy two-fingered salute.

“That makes it your turn again,” says Inara as she refills Kaylee’s cup.

“Hm. . .” Kaylee scrunches up her face in a pantomime of thought. “Not never, nohow, have I had sex with a lady—when it _wasn’t_ for business,” she adds, before Inara can do more than open her mouth. “And it don’t count if it was for training, neither.”

Inara drinks; so does Zoë.

“Aw, I really am the little backwater country girl here, huh?” Kaylee pouts, which gets her a mocking snort from Zoë.

“Who was it, Inara?” asks Kaylee.

Inara shrugs, sending ripples through the unbound mass of dark hair that falls over her shoulders.

“Of course, it’s never _just_ for business," she says. "I’ve been fortunate in my career always to have had enough offers so that I could select those who. . .had more to offer than just the fee.” She smiles like a cat cleaning her whiskers after a good hunt. “But making love solely for personal reasons, well, it’s not uncommon for intimate friendships to form during training—or afterwards, among the young Companions working on Sihnon. Indeed, since it is unwise for a Companion to form a passionate attachment to a client, and most of the people we meet are clients or potential clients. . .well, as you can imagine, it’s natural to turn towards one’s sisters for—”

“Companionship?” Zoë suggests archly.

“Of many varieties,” Inara agrees.

“Yeah, but _who?_ ” demands Kaylee, leaning forward with exaggeratedly wide eyes. “C’mon, tell us a story.”

“Where I come from, it’s unladylike to name names,” Inara responds, with a teasing twinkle in her eyes. “But there was an older girl, three or four years ahead of me, whom I admired very much. She wasn’t beautiful, strictly speaking, but you didn’t notice because her eyes and voice and face were so alive, whenever she walked into a room, it was like all the colors got brighter. And she was fearless; she did what she wanted and said what she thought, and didn’t care about the consequences.”

“Would’ve thought that sort would have a hard time training for a Companion,” said Zoë. “No offense, but I thought y’all were all about telling folk what they want to hear.”

“It’s certainly a necessary skill for the job,” Inara replies. “As is expressing one’s opinion in the way most likely to achieve one’s purpose, given the circumstances of the moment. But you’re right: my friend found her training. . .difficult. Or perhaps I should say, she made her training difficult for everyone around her. But she had such potential—and was so charming, when she had a mind to be—that she managed to finish her training without being expelled.” She smiles fondly, but the smile fades into a shadowed look as she goes on.

“But then, the war came, and that was the last straw. She had been a full Companion for only a short time, when we started hearing rumors of the uprisings. Of course, all of us were all very aware of political currents, even the trainees and young Companions who were not established well enough to be seeing influential clients yet. It was clear from fairly early on that the government was bent on Unification, even at the cost of war if that became necessary, and that dissenting too loudly would. . .at best serve little purpose. Especially after the terrorist actions of 2505. Of course, that didn’t stop my friend from speaking up very loudly and publicly indeed. She made rather a lot of waves; she was taken in for questioning more than once.”

“Bet that didn’t go over so well with the Companion’s Guild,” says Kaylee.

“It was considered. . .inappropriate,” replies Inara. “What she did reflected on her House and on the Guild. She wouldn’t quit, so they threw her out. It wasn’t long after that that war was officially declared. A lot of dissidents got rounded up and detained, but she’d already left Sihnon. I never heard from her—or of her—again, not officially. But certain news stories led me to believe that she’d found a place with the Independents, and was. . .using her talents to support the cause she believed in.”

“Might be I've heard tell of her,” says Zoë after a pause. “Siege of Ares, when the Alliance finally sent in the heavy guns against the so-called ‘pirate vessels’ that were holding the moon? Story runs, woman they called the Steel Lotus kept the Alliance parlaying for nigh onto a week and then led a suicide charge that took out the flagship of the invading fleet.”

“She never did believe in doing anything by halves,” says Inara quietly.

There’s a moment of somber silence. Then Kaylee raises her cup. The others follow suit, and they all drink a wordless toast.

“What about yours, Zoë? Who was she?” asks Kaylee.

“Who said anything about only one?” Zoë leans back in her chair, stretching out her long legs in front of her. Having left her boots by the door of Inara’s shuttle, she points and flexes her bare feet. “First was in my unit when I first joined up. She weren’t but a tiny slip of a thing, not even as big as River. Looked like she didn’t hardly weigh more’n her rifle. Don’t know how she managed to get herself enlisted, but Lord! Put a gun in her hand and she could part your hair from the far end of the firing range. Not bad hand-to-hand, either, long as she could keep moving enough so’s the big guys couldn’t just plain stomp her flat.”

“Was she pretty?” asks Kaylee.

“Never really noticed,” says Zoë. “She was fun, that’s for sure. We took up at first just as a joke, to keep the boys off our backs, but then we figured we might’s well get our money’s worth. And that we did.” She grins.

“What happened to her?” asks Inara.

“Don’t rightly know. Time the war broke out, we weren’t in the same unit any more. Tried now and again to find out, after, but lot of Browncoats went missing, one way or another. Never did hear a whisper about Xiaoliu.”

“She’s probably doing fine,” says Kaylee, but her bright smile can’t quite hide the note of doubt in her voice.

“Hope so,” says Zoë.

Inara refills the cups, and they toast again.

“We keep on with this kinda talk, we’re all gonna be under the table in no time,” says Zoë. “C’mon, it’s my turn. Not never, nohow, have I lived someplace where there was all the hot water you wanted, whenever you wanted it.”

“I think you have it in for me,” laughs Inara as she drinks.

“That is one thing I miss about living planetside,” says Kaylee. “Hot baths, real ones. Back home, we had piped water, plenty of it, and all the solar we needed to heat it.”

“Only time I ever lived planetside was during the war, when we were lucky if we had water to sponge the muck off and time to do it in,” says Zoë. “And after, for a while, but that was real rough living. Being ship-born, I didn’t mind it as much as them as had grown up on planets, I suppose, but still. . .we ever strike it rich, the first thing we’re doing is go somewhere nice and spend about a week in one of those fancy bathhouses, how’s that sound? Ladies only.”

“Shiny! I’m in!” Kaylee drains her cup, then clicks it against Zoë’s full one.

“It’s a deal,” says Inara, smiling. “Now, let me see. Not never, nohow, have I—”

“Yes, you have.” They all jump at the sound of River’s voice. The girl’s head pokes around the edge of the curtain hanging across the hatch of Inara’s shuttle.

“I’ve done a lot of things, it’s true,” Inara says smoothly. “Do you need something, River? Would you like to join us?”

“Yeah, c’mon and play.” Kaylee scrambles up from her seat among the cushions on the floor and goes over to take River’s hand. “You ever played Not Never Nohow before? It’s real simple.”

Zoë shoots Kaylee a dubious look.

“What?” Kaylee asks. “She can play, right?”

“Some house rules might be in order,” says Inara as River drops cross-legged down onto a cushion. “River, you understand that this game is only fun if you ask questions you don’t already know the answers to?”

“Everything that exists is an answer. To know is to conceive the question that makes the answer tell the story you need to hear.”

“I suppose that’s true,” says Inara, handing her a cup. “Would you like to take the next turn?”

River examines the cup, tilts her head to one side, and says, “With a blood alcohol content of approximately 0.03% to 0.12%, the average person experiences increased self-confidence and sociability, decreased anxiety and attention span, some impairment of judgment and fine muscle coordination, and flushed appearance—though that tendency is particularly dependent on genetic makeup. Not never, nohow has my blood alcohol content been greater than 0.023%.”

“I really do not want to find out what she’s like drunk,” mutters Zoë, lifting her cup as Kaylee and Inara do the same.

“Don’t worry,” says River, smiling sweetly at her. “You won’t.”


End file.
